Gasoline taxes pay for less and less of California's freeways and roads. This report (http://goo.gl/AgBO0) shows that less than 51% of freeways are paid for by what can be considered as user fees (registrations, gas taxes, etc.). The rest is paid for by bonds and other, unrelated taxes.

From the paper:

"The reasons for the decline in the share of highway costs covered by gas taxes and other âoeuser feesâ are not mysterious. The federal gasoline tax and most state gasoline taxes are not indexed for inflation, and the federal gasoline tax has not been increased since 1993. In 1999, federal gasoline and diesel taxes collected $29.8 billion for highways, and in 2008, the same taxes collected $30.6 billion for highways. Adjusted for inflation, the yearly taxes collected between 1999 and 2008 shrank 32 percent, even though we continued to build more new roads and bridges."

Unfortunately, the report you cite is inaccurate. It neglects the ad-valorum taxes on motor fuels being allocated as user fees. This was decided by referendum as recently as prop 42. The scumbags in our Democratic controlled legislature refuse to allocate those (sales) taxes to highway construction and maintenance.

In fact, if sales taxes collected on motor fuel purchases were properly allocated the result would be a $25+ billion subsidy to the general fund (nationally) .

It's not just Amazon, a lot of online retailers don't charge taxes. Here's what everybody in Washington seems to be missing though: A LOT of people buy A LOT of stuff online for the past decade or two. All this stuff used to be in brick and mortar stores getting taxed regularly, now that revenue has completely moved to the private sector, which doesn't do much for the country besides the CEOs like to help the private jet industry from time to time.

I think as a country we are collecting less tax from internal sales overall, and suddenly the debt skyrockets...

You're equating falling sales tax revenues with a rising national debt even though there is no national sales tax. The two are entirely unrelated.

There are primary reason why the national debt is increasing is the trillions spent on the GWoT. The fact that the baby boomers are now starting to retire and collect benefits rather than working and paying taxes is also a significant contributor. It has nothing to do with Amazon.

You're equating falling sales tax revenues with a rising national debt even though there is no national sales tax. The two are entirely unrelated.

Not completely. A lot of the stimulus money ended up going to cover state budget deficits which may have been exacerbated by falling sales tax revenue. (N.B. I don't actually know if sales tax revenue is falling, if it is falling due to online sales, or if the amount of the fall is a large enough to have a real impact on state budgets relative to e.g. income tax receipts.)
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JimFive

Which makes sense, if you think that everything should be funded by those who use it. If, on the other hand, you think that everything should be funded by those who benefit from it, it makes more sense to weigh the tax against the businesses who are able to pull in millions of dollars each year due to the public infrastructure provided for by tax dollars.

Which makes sense, if you think that everything should be funded by those who use it.

What possible reason is there to fund things any other way?

If, on the other hand, you think that everything should be funded by those who benefit from it, it makes more sense to weigh the tax against the businesses who are able to pull in millions of dollars each year due to the public infrastructure provided for by tax dollars.

Duh. Businesses don't pay tax. 'Tax on business' ends up being paid either by the employees or the customers; so all the class warriors demanding that 'companies should pay more tax!' are really demanding that 'wages should be lower and prices should be higher!'

Which isn't quite so bad if those customers are in another state so you're sucking money in from outside, but that's not the case here.

Because, as my next sentence clearly states, you can fund a project based on benefit provided, rather than use. Certain individuals or corporations stand to lose much more if there is inadequate infrastructure, and stand to gain much more from the maintenance of said infrastructure. It is reasonable for them to pay a larger portion of the construction and maintenance of said infrastructure.

Duh. Businesses don't pay tax. 'Tax on business' ends up being paid either by the employees or the customers; so all the class warriors demanding that 'companies should pay more tax!' are really demanding that 'wages should be lower and prices should be higher!'

Well, since we've got corporate personhood [boingboing.net], businesses can pay taxes. If you still insist that people are paying those

Well, since we've got corporate personhood [boingboing.net], businesses can pay taxes. If you still insist that people are paying those taxes, I supposed it'd be the shareholders, not the employees or customers, directly paying those costs. I'm okay with that.

Yes, but no. The problem is that for business in competitive markets, like food and housing -- you know, the things poor people buy -- the margins the owners make are razor thin. When you go out and increase the costs (that is, taxes) on everyone in the market, the money has to come from somewhere, and since it can't come from the corporate owners (who will liquidate the business and invest the money in commodities, foreign markets, etc. if they can't make at least the pittance they do now), it has to come

One of the problems is that Gas Taxes aren't always spent on the roads. They go to rail systems and scenic bike paths that do not service any businesses, and in one case that i know of, they supplemented a local authority distributing HUD funding. Yes, they used the gas tax revenue allocated to the local municipality to buy HUD eligible homes to be rented out for just a bit more then the interest payments on the homes. The city will have a balloon payment to pay after 15 years. Once you figure maintenance i

But Amazon isn't the one who owes the sales tax, it's the consumers. If this guy feels the state is being cheated from tax money he should write them a check for what he owes them. He shouldn't need Amazon to do it for him.

I'm not a libertarian. I'm more left-wing than your "Democratic" party (for that matter, I'm not an American, either). And I fully support the use of Somalia as a reserve for libertarians.

Now, can you lay off the trash talk, and actually answer the original question? State law clearly doesn't apply when the seller is not in that state (having the package shipped there doesn't count as a "presence", as otherwise whenever you send a mail you'd be subject to laws of all states it passes through - clear BS). Th

Having employees, business affiliates, or owning businesses in a state could easily be interpreted as having a presence in that state. I think that's the issue here. So, does Amazon's affiliate program count as a presence? I think that's a gray area that people could debate for weeks.

Instead, let's look at the elephant in the room. Does Amazon's Californian companies, which include A2Z development, A9 and Alexa, count as a presence? I think yes and the federal government generally won't interfere in a state

Instead, let's look at the elephant in the room. Does Amazon's Californian companies, which include A2Z development, A9 and Alexa, count as a presence? I think yes and the federal government generally won't interfere in a state's regulation of a business if a business is going to operate in that state. So unless Amazon wants to relocate those businesses I don't see any way out of this sales tax trap set by Sacramento.

Yes, it's a matter of interpretation. My point is that Amazon does pay tax in those states where it undeniably has business presence, it just disputes that California is such. Whether it is or not can be settled by the courts if needed.

Probably because it's a mess. Having to track receipts all year just so that you know how much to pay.

But, at least there's a line on the income tax return, around here we're supposed to keep track of all those purchases then figure out where to get the forms from and where to send the checks. Needless to say that nobody pays the sales tax on online purchases, but technically we're supposed to.

At the end of the day, Amazon is just being a hypocritical baby gladly taking advantage of a broken system.

Not really, it's ultimately the fault of the Federal Government for not requiring that Amazon collect. Without Amazon collecting it's questionable if state auditors would even have the ability to audit payments for those purchases. The reason that Amazon hasn't been collecting and submitting that sales tax is that it doesn't have a presence in the state.

Which ultimately leads to a bit of a problem, the state is going to have a hard time knowing whom to audit if Amazon can't be compelled to submit documentat

Not really, it's ultimately the fault of the Federal Government for not requiring that Amazon collect.

The trouble is that there is a very good reason why they haven't: If they do then the states can enact de facto tariffs on interstate commerce.

All California has to do is establish a 15% sales tax and then use the extra money to subsidize local corporations or, equivalently, reduce their non-sales taxes. Then everybody who sells to California's large population has to collect the high sales tax, but no one without operations in California get the consequent tax reductions or subsidies that the high sales ta

The bigger mess is for an on-line retailer to keep track of sales taxes rates for every state, county, and municipality in the country. That's right, even the local governments are cashing in on sales tax, making it all more complex.

At least the consumer knows the sales tax for his or her area.

If governments want to collect sales tax for interstate commerce, then the government should maintain a database of these tax rates. Then, they should build an application with an API that retailers could query to

That's really not that hard to do. If it were that hard to do, then you wouldn't see Amazon collecting taxes in any state correctly because they wouldn't have any way of keeping track of how much to collect in which locality. A multibillion dollar business like Amazon ought to have no trouble getting it correct. And smaller businesses would just buy the database information needed the same way that they purchase payment processing services.

There are a few providers of a sales tax database, and at least one that provides a calculation service, strikeiron.com. This may not be a problem for multibillion dollar businesses, but it is for smaller businesses.

The first method requires you to pay for monthly updates. It requires the business owner pay for a developer to write an data munging script, and/or an import script for the e-commerce software. It also requires the business owner to pay for a monthly import of the data into his e-commerce softw

All county and local municipalities get their authority to tax from the state because they are a political subdivision. So if it is really necessary to collect sales tax for every state someone orders something from, then have the state set a default sales tax equal to the average of all the different sales taxes within the state and distribute the excess to it's own political subdivisions.

This might upset some communities who's sales tax is a lot more, but in reality, it would be an addit

I'm not concerned about me; I want to ensure that the millions of other Californians are paying their fare share, so that they're properly funding the government. Since it would be prohibitively expensive to audit each and every person who purchase anything off of the internet, it makes more sense to focus the responsibility in one place, much as we put the onus on brick-and-mortar stores to collect sales tax, instead of depending on each consumer to tally their own sales tax and submit it at the end of the

it makes more sense to focus the responsibility in one place, much as we put the onus on brick-and-mortar stores to collect sales tax, instead of depending on each consumer to tally their own sales tax and submit it at the end of the year.

Maybe because Amazon as a company doesn't benefit from the government provided services that are supposed to be covered by sales tax? Sales tax is often used to pay subsidies for "better" operating procedures, like cleaner operations, employing certain individuals, etc.

A business without a physical presence in a state does not share those benefits, which is why the SCOTUS said they shouldn't have to pay for them either.

Maybe because Amazon as a company doesn't benefit from the government provided services that are supposed to be covered by sales tax? Sales tax is often used to pay subsidies for "better" operating procedures, like cleaner operations, employing certain individuals, etc.

A business without a physical presence in a state does not share those benefits, which is why the SCOTUS said they shouldn't have to pay for them either.

Excellent.

Time to start looting Amazon delivery trucks, since they won't be protected by the police, and sell them like any pirate would.

I'm not sure that, "Screw it, we'll just go elsewhere." is really a problem. Amazon looked at what it would cost to operate there, decided there are better places, and left. And as far as I know every brick and mortar in CA is free to do the same if they think it's best for them.

Hell, companies decide where to incorporate, where to operate and what places they want to do business with every day. Always have. States have always had to consider what they're doing when they go fishing for money, because

Tn the constitution there's something called the inter-state commerce clause. Among many (many!) other things it has been interpreted to mean that states can't levy taxes across state lines.

Granted with Amazon operating affiliates in CA, so there's some question as to whether they are in fact doing business in CA, but in general if a web site or catalog is operating outside of a state and shipping to inside of the state, the state can't lay a sales tax on that transaction. Brick and mortar business obviousl

Well, more importantly how is it that states can tax interstate commerce commerce despite being explicitly forbidden in the constituion, whether you call it a "use tax" or whatever. That's like saying that a censorship law isn't about blocking free speech but instead it is just about regulating the movement of jaws and tongues.

Because all they were doing is stopping affiliates in California. Now while Amazon doesn't want to do that, they like affiliates because they make money on them, it really isn't a big issue. They still sold to California, and there is nothing CA could do to stop them. Amazon itself and their affiliates in all the other states would still sell to buyers in CA.

Californians would continue to buy from Amazon. The pullout only ensures that no one buys Californian goods from them. Currently, I buy a lot of stuff from California vendors, thus stimulating California's economy. This helpful tax would have ensured that I sent zero dollars whatsoever to CA.

More specifically, Amazon closed your accounts because they did not like the prior legislation.

More accurately, the legislation was passed that made it more profitable for Amazon to close your accounts than not. And the legislators could easily have predicted that before passing it, because that is exactly what happened when the other states did it. Is it Amazon's fault that the legislature has created a perverse incentive for it?

Depends on how you define regular people. If you define regular people as people who work in the retail stores, who are experiencing declining sales and closing locations and losing jobs, then it isn't really a tax holiday that benefits regular people. If you define regular people as people who "cheat" the tax code by not paying the use tax on items purchased online, though, then sure it benefits them. Of course, that's the whole reason the government started forcing business into the role of tax collect

Retail isn't in decline just because online shops get a tax break. Here in the UK, apart from a couple of small soon-to-be-closed loopholes, Amazon have to pay the same tax on its goods as brick-and-mortar shops do. And despite this they're still cheaper than the high street on most occasions, since direct shipping is still cheaper than running a store. And so, retail is still in decline, shops are closing down left right and centre, and Amazon has basically won. Tax isn't going to change that.

But put yourself in this situation. Widget costs the same in physical store as it costs on Amazon. Sales tax is running 10%. Do you buy it in the store, paying an extra 10% in tax, or do you buy online, use the free super saver shipping, and effectively get the item for 10% off? That's how it is in California, and that's why the physical stores are lobbying for Amazon to have to do the same tax collecting that they have to do.

Agreed that the situation is unfair, my point was that the disparity won't make any difference one way or the other. If Amazon charge the same price as the high street, people are still going to flock to Amazon. Home delivery is convenient and it's getting better all the time, so why bother spending time and money visiting a store?

Because this silly "tax holiday" is destroying millions of jobs all over the country? Remember when you could go to a mall and go into dozens of stores and shop for clothes and get them that day? Now you get to sit online and wait a week if it doesn't get lost in the mail. Awesome.....

The closest mall (real enclosed mall not a strip mall) to me has been a tax write off for a couple of decades and they've damned sure the property loses money. The closest real functioning malls are an hour (one way) away.

Two day shipping beats two hours of driving most times. Next day takes care of just about every other case.

If there were local malls to shop at I'd be shopping there, but there aren't any that aren't there to lose money for their owners.

Are you talking about the Columbus Ohio city center mall? They used to bus people in from out of state to shop there, then it became all kids, there were some gang problems, and no one wanted to visit it. People who lived a few blocks from it would drive across town avoiding it to shop safely.

East land mall had much the same problems and is as you describe "an anchor store" but otherwise empty. Polaris and Tuttle malls kept the kid and gang problems down, but i haven't been to either in 8 or more years. I'm

This is about bringing jobs to California, not bringing jobs to America.

If a company moves from one state to another, does this make our economy somehow better?

Having states squabble and bicker and compete with each other for business does not help. It only takes up politician's time and adds bureaucracy and adminstration - effort that does not contribute to production.

Existing companies already have the employees they need to make their product. This is not true in all cases, but as a general rule it works quite well. Jobs come from new companies forming and from newish companies growing big.

We've done everything possible to stifle new business in this country[1][2], and this is just another card in that deck. Giving a break to an existing company creates a barrier for the creation of a new company which might compete. It makes the existing company weak and complacent.

If GE pays no taxes, it's hard to start a company making a competing product.

We could turn the recession around and have a vibrant economy very quickly if we could stop propping up stagnation, and focus on encouraging growth

Which they won't be able to buy as they lost their jobs at brick and mortar stores.

See, it's not as simplistic as the bugs-bunny economics being sold to people.

Manufacturing and shipping jobs don't exist in enough abundance to compensate, and by your own argument will never exist, as people, you know, the ones who make up the market ARE the 'market inefficiencies' you talk about. It would STILL be OK if we actua

It is called "Use" tax, which is defined in the instructions for form 540:

"California use tax applies to purchases from out-of-state sellers (forexample, purchases made by telephone, over the Internet, by mail, or inperson). .."

This is followed by a worksheet which walks filers through the process of calculating the amount to report (e.g. on line 95 of form 540).

I guess I should say that CA tries to collect this tax. I have paid it every year I resided in CA (or other states that required it) for over 10 years. I don't recall ever meeting another person who claimed to pay it when the subject came up (granted, it rarely comes up).